Being really good at League of Legends could pay millions

Riot Games announced the details for the Season 2 World Championships Region and World Finals for League of Legends, including a $3 million prize pool for the entire event.

The second season of professional, competitive play for the popular free-to-play title will conclude on October 13, 2012 in Los Angeles, where twelve teams from around the world will compete. Riot Games is touting the gigantic winnings as, “the biggest payday in eSports history.” League of Legends has been the big downloadable hit of the last year or so, with more than 35 million monthly active users.

Marc Merrill, co-founder and president of Riot Games, said in a press release sent to GamesBeat, “I can’t wait to see how many fans tune in online for the final matches of Season 2 – we’re halfway through the season and we’ve already seen more than two million live viewers for a single circuit event. Just to put that in context, that’s a bigger audience than a Major League Baseball game on ESPN – it’s incredible to think about.”

For comparison, the winning team of the first season of League of Legend’s World Championships won $50,000.

UPDATE: This story originally reported that $3 million would be awarded to the winning team. Riot Games informed us that the $3 million is a prize pool that will be spread across the entire event.

UPDATE 2: Riot Games has released a video about the finals, embedded below.